Hamilton leads an all- Merc front row
Le Castellet ( France), June 23: Lewis Hamilton secured pole position for the French Grand Prix ahead of his team mate Valtteri Bottas as Mercedes dominated Saturday’s crash- hit qualifying session to sweep the front row of the grid.
The four- time world champion clocked a best lap in one minute and 30.029 seconds to grab the 75th pole position of his career ahead of Bottas, giving himself a perfect chance to regain the initiative in the title race in Sunday’s race.
Championship leader, and fellow four- time world champion, Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari was third, threetenths off the pace, ahead of Max Verstappen and his Red Bull team mate Australian Daniel Ricciardo.
Kimi Raikkonen was sixth in the second Ferrari ahead of Carlos Sainz of Renault, Charles Leclerc of Sauber, Kevin Magnussen and his Haas team mate Romain Grosjean, who crashed during the top- ten shootout, halting the session for eight minutes.
“That wasn’t too bad,” said Hamilton.
“It feels great to be back in France — it’s a beautiful place and we got a great response from the crowd,” he added.
Bottas said: “It wasn’t a bad lap, not perfect either. I’ve been struggling to get perfect laps this week — I was catching up rung by rung, but a one- two here is great. The engine feels good, fresh and powerful.”
Vettel admitted he may have pushed too much but was happy with third place.
“I raced in the last French Grand Prix in 2008 and it is amazing to see so many people here and all the excitement for all of us. It is nice to be here — there’s a lot of colour, so it really comes alive.”